INDONESIA: The Magic Scissors

The black financial magic by which
governments raise or lower the value of their currencies amid
incantations of economic mumbo-jumbo is apt to baffle all but the most
sophisticated spectators. But last week the government of "backward"
Indonesia, whose guilder was badly inflated, devised an ingeniously
simple new method that anyone could grasp, for letting the air out of
their currency. Indonesian Finance Minister Sjafruddin Prawiranegara
ordered Indonesians to get out their scissors and cut in half their
paper money above five guilders.

The left halves of the banknotes will be legal tender at half their face
value until April...